Death of Innocence
by ParadiseAvenger
Summary: MOVED! After the death of her brother, Sakura looks to Syaoran for comfort, but the aftereffects leave her more broken. This time, Syaoran is the cause, not the cure. He had been gone for four years, but WHY...? Partial AU. Adult themes. Eventual SyaoranXSakura. MOVED!


So, at this point, everyone knows that I was forced to remove Lemon Island and its mature content due to the Eliminator Forum vicious attacking and trolling me. I'm going to move ALL my mature stories to a new website. If you're just as sick of this as I am, please join our cause to bring freedom back to Fanfiction!

**Avenger Forum link, remove spaces and *:** www. fanfiction. n*e*t /forum/Avenger/119079 (All information can be found in the Supporter forum.)

**The Rebellion Forum link, remove spaces and *:** www. fanfiction. n*e*t /forum/The-Rebellion/114259/ (Most forums are banding together here.)

**Petition for an MA rating link, remove spaces and *:** www. change. o*r*g /petitions/fanfiction-net-we-want-fanfiction-to-create-a-ma-rating

…

Anyway, I have **MOVED** this story **COMPLETELY** to another site. You can find this **STORY** and all its subsequent **UPDATES **here: h*t*t*p :/archiveofourown. o*r*g /works/722927/chapters/1340971

I have the same penname there as I do here: ParadiseAvenger

X X X

Moments earlier, Toya had just died. The king, Sakura's brother, was dead.

Before that—in the long time it took for Toya's illness to eat away at and finally kill him—Sakura, Syaoran, and Yukito had held vigil at the king's side until the bitter end. Syaoran stayed up all night while Sakura slept, kneeling at her brother's side, leaning against her friend's legs with only his promise to wake her if the king so much as stirred.

Yukito was tireless, constantly praying or mixing potions, doing anything he thought would save the king. He even toed the line of black magic, wondering if he could use his powers to keep his friend alive. He would not allow the king to die, he insisted, but it was becoming clear that there was nothing he could do to stop this sickness. The weight of that solemn vow that was slowly driving the high priest into the ground.

When exhaustion finally took Yukito on the third sleepless night towards the end, Syaoran fashioned him a makeshift bed in the chair at Toya's bedside, tending the priest as he did Sakura: carefully, speaking softly, and covering them when they happened to drop off to sleep. The many nights of staying up working at the digs or studying hard allowed him to stay up for the longest amount of time. But even he was drawing to the end of his rope.

Toya held on, struggled against the sickness that ate away at him for nearly two weeks, for thirteen long days. Yukito rarely left the king's side, going only to the bathroom. Sakura held an endless vigil as well and she would only leave when Syaoran took her—kicking and screaming—from Toya's room. As so, this was how it was.

On the night the sickness was to finally take Toya to his grave, everything both began and ended.

"Princess," Syaoran whispered and put his ragged cloak around her narrow shoulders.

"Syaoran, I really need you to call me Sakura," she whispered without tearing her eyes from the waif form of her brother. "Please…"

"Sakura, you need to eat something, please," Syaoran pleaded and knelt at her side. He wrapped an arm around her body and pulled her close against his side. Her skin was chilled to the touch, like marble, and he rubbed her exposed arms with his hands, hoping to warm her.

"Not hungry," she muttered and gripped her brother's clammy hand.

"For me?" Syaoran asked and tried to pull her to her feet, but she clung to the bed frame. "Please, Sakura. Think of what Toya would want. Do you think he'd want his sister to catch the same sickness as him because she wouldn't eat?"

"No…" she whispered.

When Syaoran lifted her gently to her feet, she was limp like a rag doll. He swept his arm under her knees and the other behind her shoulders to carry her. She wrapped her arms around his neck and sobbed into his skin, clinging to him. He felt the diamonds roll down to rest in the hollow of his throat and in the cups of his collarbones.

"Sakura, everything's going to be alright," Syaoran insisted as he carried her from the chamber to the kitchen. He passed Yukito in the hall silently, holding the princess's face against his throat so she wouldn't see how the high priest was dying too.

There were dark circles under Yukito's exhausted blue eyes. His eyes had once been shining, mirthful, joyous—the eyes of someone who wasn't watching their best friend waste away a little more each day. Now, the sapphire eyes belonged in the sunken face of a corpse: cloudy, dead. Yukito's usually pressed robes were dirty and wrinkled, slept-in, and his pale skin was stretched over the gaunt bones of his face because Syaoran didn't hold sway to demand the priest eat something like he did with Sakura. Yukito had taken to wearing his glasses pushed high up on his nose to hide his eyes from the princess, but Syaoran was taller and could see what was hidden.

Syaoran settled Sakura in a chair at the table in the kitchen. He asked one of the cooks to make her something and they eagerly obliged him. Then, he returned to her side and sat there beside her in silence. After a moment, the cook brought something out for Sakura, but she only picked at her food, venturing a few bites of a dish Syaoran knew to be her favorite.

The cook lingered behind the kitchen door, imploring Syaoran with his soft grey eyes: _please, make her eat._

Syaoran shook his head and gestured for the cook to bring him a glass of something, anything, just to get the cook out of the way for a few minutes. It was hard enough to see Sakura like this, to see her suffering and know he could do nothing to help her, without someone imploring him to help her further. If he could have done anything for her right now, god, he would have one it three times over by now. Once the cook had scurried off, Syaoran crossed to the other side of the table and sat beside Sakura.

"Sakura, please, try to eat a little more," he whispered. "You're worrying me."

"Syaoran…" she whispered and chased a green bean across her plate. "My brother is dying… I don't want to eat…"

Syaoran wrapped his arms around her and held her close. He pressed his lips against her hair, her forehead, her cheeks, and her closed eyes. He caught her tears and smoothed her clothes with a practiced hand. "It'll turn out alright," he murmured. She needed the assurance of even a lie because, like Yukito, she was dying too. Only Syaoran would save her or he would cease to exist. "Sakura…" he whispered and she shuddered against his chest.

"Please, take me back to my brother," she begged and lifted his shirt a little so she could press her hands against the warmth of his skin. Toya's skin was cold as the grave and she always seemed comforted by the heat of Syaoran.

"Sakura," he whispered.

"Please," she repeated.

And how could he ever deny her anything that was in his power to grant?

And so, he carried her back to her brother's death bed and set her down in a chair beside Yukito. For a while, he watched over them. Then, by some stroke of terrible luck, on the thirteenth night, Syaoran had gone home to shower and change. He was only gone for an hour, but in the short span of time, King Toya died.

…

Syaoran's house was beyond messy. Dirty laundry covered most of the floor, unwashed dishes were stacked in the sink, books were piled up just inside the door and scattered across the coffee table, his cloak was tossed carelessly somewhere. He hadn't been home enough to keep his home in any semblance of cleanliness. He wasn't there enough. Before, he had spent all his time at the dig. Now, he spent all his time at the palace, doing what he could for Sakura, Yukito, and Toya.

Quickly, he stepped out of the bathroom, still wet with a towel low slung on his sharp hips, intent on finding his cleanest pair of dirty pants and shaking the dust off a shirt from work and going back to the castle. He was tunnel-visioned on that single goal.

But Sakura was standing just outside his bathroom door, so close that he almost ran into her.

"Princess?!"

She threw her arms around him and he stumbled back into bathroom, his spine knocking painfully into the edge of the vanity. "Syaoran," she sobbed. "My brother… Toya… he… he's… the king's… he's dead, Syaoran…"

"What?" he gasped, arm automatically embracing her.

She nodded, tears welling up in her eyes.

"Sakura, no, I'm so sorry…" Syaoran murmured and coiled his arms around her. She sobbed into his bare chest, digging her fingernails into his back as if to purposefully break the skin so he would hurt like she did. He let her, holding her while she cried and sobbed.

Finally, her tears gave way to shuddering sobs. Then, the sobs became tremors and she shook like a leaf in gale force winds. By then, they had slumped to the bathroom floor and Sakura had crawled into his lap and pushed his towel dangerously low in her quest to touch warm skin. When the tremors had finally subsided, she looked up at him with red-rimmed emerald eyes. Then, she pushed herself up with her hands on his shoulders and swung her legs around until she could get her knees under his arms, straddling his waist so they were pressed chest to chest. Syaoran rested his hands in the small of her back, held her there gently.

She wet her lips and her throat worked furiously as if she were going to speak. Then she shook her head and kissed him. Shocked, Syaoran tried to push her back. This wasn't right—she was distraught, sick. Her brother had just died and she was the princess, his best friend. But… her lips were like heaven as warm and soft as he had always imagined they would be. It took all his will power to try to push her away.

"Sakura, Sakura, wait," he said when he was finally able to put some space between them. "Wait! Hold on, you're not well."

Her shoulders trembled and she gripped him tighter, clinging to him, when he tried again to push her away.

"Sakura, just calm down, please. Breathe."

Slowly, her grip on him loosened to the point where he could lift her from his lap and stand up. He sat her down on the rim of the sink after brushing his toothbrush, toothpaste, and a comb carelessly onto the laundry-littered floor. He adjusted his towel and stood up in front of her to draw her into his arms again. Her thighs parted easily to position him between them, but he tried to ignore the heat of her sex.

"Sakura, do you want to stay here tonight?" he whispered into her hair.

She nodded.

"I'll jog up to the palace and let Yukito-san know you'll be staying with me, then," he murmured.

"You don't have to…" Sakura whispered and her slender frame trembled. "I'm king now. I can do… whatever I want…" She gripped him. "Syaoran, please, I need you."

"I'll stay with you, Sakura," he told her. "It'll be okay."

She shuddered against him, silent for a moment. Then, her voice rising into hysteria, she shouted, "No, no, it won't!"

"Hey," Syaoran said quietly and drew her face away from his shoulder. He cupped her jaw, raised her chin so she'd look at him, and kissed her cheek gently. "Listen, I love you. I'll be here for you, forever and ever. I'll never leave you."

Her breath rattled in her lungs and she sniffled. "Syaoran…" she whispered.

He rested his forehead against hers and murmured, "Yes?"

She touched his waist a little hesitantly and hooked her fingers under the knot of wet towel creeping down his hips. He tensed, muscles in his chest rippling beneath the pale unblemished skin. Her other hand traced a faint path up his chest, over his shoulders, and finally tangled in his chocolate hair. "Tonight, right now?"

"Sakura, you're not yourself. Listen, let me get dressed—"

She yanked on the towel so he had to scramble to hold it up. "No."

"Princess, just go get in my bed and think about what you're saying—"

"I know what I'm saying. I love you and you love me." She kissed his lips, softly, gently, with the tenderness she knew he needed to feel to be sure of what she was asking. "I need this. I need to feel you, to know you're alive."

"Sakura." Syaoran cupped her face, pushing back the tendrils of light auburn hair that fluttered in her face.

"Before he… passed on… Toya gave us his blessing. He said that there's no one who can ever love me more than you," she whispered.

Syaoran shivered as she raked her nails down his back and circled around to grip his biceps.

"Please, Syaoran, please."

He was quiet for a long time, touching her shoulders and back and running the pads of his fingers along the outsides of her thighs. Finally, he took a deep breath, hooked his fingers in the bottom of her shirt, and lifted it over her head. She lifted her arms to make it easier for him.

"If you want to stop, if I hurt you, no matter what, tell me to stop and I will…"

She pressed a finger to his lips and placed a kiss in the hollow of his throat as if she sensed something there, letting her lips linger for a long time. "It's my first time…"

"Yes, mine too. I'll be careful…"

"I know you will."

Then, Syaoran took the princess in his arms and carried her to his bedroom where he had to brush several days' worth of laundry onto the floor. She looked like an angel, lying there with her pale hair spread across his dark sheets. Her skin was porcelain and almost translucent in the moonlight, ribs casting faint shadows. Syaoran gently pulled off her pants and laid them neatly at the bottom of the bed with his towel. There was to be nothing rushed about this. It was all about Sakura, about what she needed. She unfastened her bra, no embarrassment because Syaoran was her best friend and would love her no matter what he saw, though a blush colored her cheeks. He laid her bra aside and helped her shaking hands peel off her panties.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes," she breathed and pressed against him—skin on skin for the first time and sighed in bliss. "I could touch you forever…"

"Okay…"

Then, they spoke no more but came together gently, beautifully. He melded with her as if they were made for each other. Just a twinge of pain that she felt pass the instant he filled her to the brim. She knew the moment he left her, she would feel empty until he was with her again. She fell asleep in his arms, listening to his heart beat evenly behind his ribs. He was alive, she told herself as her eyes fluttered closed in bliss. He's alive and he's not going to leave me alone, not Syaoran, not ever.

But, in the morning, Syaoran was gone…

X X X

And I removed the original mature content that continued from that point due to the trolls. Please join the cause to bring maturity to Fanfiction again. Or read this story and all its updates in its original version on Archive of Our Own.


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